There has been a lot of talk amongst the chattering classes lately about Obama looking the other way as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have been supporting the local al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria against the Assad government. For a long period of time American arms "accidentally" flowed freely into the hands of the radical Islamist jihadis of al-Qaeda and ISIS. Then the "journalism" outlets started to get on board with the program.

Today's Beastiable is Presidential candidate Mike Houndabee. He has said a lot of narrow-minded things, but what he has said about marriage equality was beastly enough that he has earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables. Which I summarize thusly:

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Friday afternoon/evening here at caucus99percent. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For a short course in serious information, please join me below the break. As always, you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with a cute photo before you leave.

Things are beginning to happen in the markets. People in the know can sense a change in the wind. Those people in the know are predators on Wall Street and they are prepared to pounce on their traditional prey - retail investors.

I don't have much time so I'm going to be brief. This was meant to be a comment in another diary on the subject at the GOS, but I've decided to put this out here on its own.

This all, to me, seems as it's a Sanders versus Clinton proxy war, with genuine anger and sympathy for the fucked up situation that Sommer Foster had to deal with. I feel horrible for the bullying that she had to endure. No one should have to endure that. No one.

One of the documents is an NSA intercept of Steinmeier's communications after Steinmeier met his US counterpart, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

According to the intercept, Steinmeier "seemed relieved that he had not received any definitive response from the U.S. Secretary of State regarding press reports of CIA flights through Germany to secret prisons in eastern Europe allegedly used for interrogating terrorism suspects."

The visit occurred in the context of an escalating and ongoing scandal in Europe over clandestine "rendition flights" conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using the airspace and airport facilities of cooperating European countries, in which it was alleged by leading news publications that European citizens and residents had been abducted outside of any legal process and taken to secret "black site" prisons, where they could be tortured with impunity. After the scandal emerged, European governments defied their publics, continuing to cooperate with the United States while denying all knowledge of rendition flights. These denials relied heavily on the insistence of European governments that they had received confidential "diplomatic assurances" from the United States that nothing illegal was taking place. It was subsequently shown in numerous court proceedings and commissions of inquiry that the activity was illegal.

The French Foreign Legion has a special place in history, known both for its bravery and for its failures, but mostly for its association with the ills of imperialism and colonialism. That's why comments like this stand out.

Comedians love him. Donald Trump is practically a caricature of himself. He's so rediculous he should be an asterisk in the polling results.

Yet Trump leads all Republicans in the polls. Not just one poll, not just one state, and not just one week. Why?
Most people write it off as a fluke. It's not sustainable. It's just a temporary embarrassing moment in American politics.

Today's Beastiable is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has now announced his candidacy for the Presidency. He has said many beastly things, as admirably reported by Daily Kos' esteemed Puddytat. Thus, now that he has announced, he has earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables.

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Friday afternoon here at caucus99percent. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For serious source information, please join me below for the squirming of beasties on the hot seat. Then you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with a cute photo before you leave.

Americans are intimately familiar with the city of Fallujah. It's where the Sunni resistance to the occupation of Iraq was born, and where nearly 100 American soldiers lost their lives in the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. More than 1,500 civilians were killed and over 70,000 buildings were destroyed in those battles.

Greece’s dire financial straits meant it had scant leverage to push back against some of its creditors’ most onerous demands. ...

The moves are fostering a deep sense of resentment among Tsipras’s allies and a conviction that Europeans sought to humiliate him. During a pivotal meeting with Merkel, French President François Hollande and European Council President Donald Tusk, Tsipras at one point received a thinly veiled threat that if he walked away and left the euro, Greece risked going it alone geopolitically, too.

According to two officials in Brussels with knowledge of the exchange, the specter was raised of aggression from Turkey — a neighboring nation viewed in Greece as a historic antagonist.

Are you sufficiently terrified? Unless you are currently cowering under your bed and praying to whatever diety you think can help you, then you aren't terrified enough.
If you don't believe me then you weren't watching cable news in the days leading up to Independence Day.

The "Little Ice Age" and its included climactic minima is often partially attributed to an extreme solar minimum. In particular,

During the period 1645--1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. The Spörer Minimum has also been identified with a significant cooling period between 1460 and 1550.[69] Other indicators of low solar activity during this period are levels of the isotopes carbon-14 and beryllium-10.[70]

Seymour Hersh's blockbuster storyThe Killing of Osama bin Laden, got a lot of attention for a very short period of time. That media attention was mostly in the form of character assassination such as “conspiracy theorist,” “off the rails,” “crank,” and general "kill the messenger" attacks.

Greetings, 99%! I hope you will enjoy my sharing with you this week's cartoon based, of course, on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who recently announced that he is running for President. He has been beastly for a long time, continues to be beastly, and has surely earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables.

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Wednesday about 1:30-1:45 PM Eastern on Daily Kos, Friday afternoons here. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For the serious story behind the cartoon lampoon, please read on while we make the beastie squirm on the hot seat. Then you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with cute chimp photos before you leave.